wg09: the God of worship

so the main sessions from worshipGod09 are now online. i would highly recommend listening to all of them. they were great fuel for my soul in worship while at the conference, and i pray the Spirit's fire will continue to use them to burn for the glory of Christ.

over the next few days, i'll be posting my notes for the sessions. i tried to keep them concise, both so i could pay more attention to the actual speaker (many of them *cough piper cough* were very animated) and so that i wouldn't have to pour over pages of notes to remember what God taught me there. so, here is session 1, the God of worship, by john piper:

"
-mindset [jwr: heartset] of flesh (or secular mindset, sm) (on self, my rights and desires as starting point) vs. Biblical mindset (Bm) (on God, His rights and purposes as starting point)

-take time to contemplate on the absolute existance [jwr: aseity] of God: unconditional, independent, before and without all things

-"if you were able to embrace all the universe with benevolence, leaving God out of account, you would be infinitely parochial" ~jonathan edwards
->"galaxies are God's pinky-work" ~jp

-what's the riddle/big problem of the universe?
->sm: solve man's problems, preserve his rights
->Bm: display all the manifold wisdom of God
***-Rom. 3:25-26 -> unintelligible to sm. hard even for many Christians influenced by the world

-below justification and reconciliation, the God-centered cross displays and vindicates His righteousness in the face of forgiven sins
->the cross must be God-centered before and in order to be for our sake (cf. 2 Sam 12:12-13) God passes over sins - how is He then a just judge
-->[jwr: i am uriah's murderer]
->to be righteous, God's glory must be rightly valued
-worship flavor: no one has ever been wronged by God
->God's God-centeredness is love, because the only eternal happiness is a happiness focused on the glory of God in the face of Christ
"i don't play games in the pulpit...bash their ideas, and pursue them"

-the reason that the cross is folly to the world is that it's the end of self-exaltation, and the beginning of human exultation in God's exaltation.
"

this session greatly helped me understand why God's God-centeredness is not egomania and is, in fact, love. it pointed me back to the cross, the blazing center of God's glory, and the greatest display of His love for sinners. it was also a real treat to finally be able to sit under piper's teaching live. he is indeed a presence on stage. it was a great kick-off to a conference which i hope will bear much fruit for a long time to come.